Yep another 7970m problem thread (forgive me plz)

EDIT: Resolved: It was simply a bad card and a replacement card worked wonderfully. Sorry for the late update I had forgotten about this thread.


I would first like to say that I have been scouring everywhere I can find and have spent the last 12 hours (seriously) trying to get this thing to work. I know it is rampant but the majority of the threads I see seem to show in the end one of the solutions working. I want to be totally sure I have a bad card before taking the return step and I am still nowhere near convinced that's the case given all the problems with this card. I will try to provide all the information I have below, ask me for more if I forgot something. Thanks in advance.


Specs:
3720QM, 7970m, 2x 8GB corsair 1600, 256gb Samsung SSD 830, 500GB Seagate in optical, 1080 95% matte screen.

Intro:
The furthest I have gotten was being able to play Tribes Ascend for about 15 seconds before BSOD and then unable to do anything. I repeatedly get BSOD or black screens on boot and if not that only Intel graphics will work and CCC will throw one of 2 errors (wrong driver, no card detected). I will see code 43 on the 7970m and alot of the time an unable to load driver on the 4000.

Steps:
Re-installed windows twice as well as restored using a complete drive image of a just installed and updated version. Win 7 ult x64 of course.

Drivers I have tried:
Clevo drivers
Test drivers from here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sager-clevo/679568-7970m-8-982rc1-feedback-appreciated.html
12.6 beta
12.6 WHQL
12.7 beta
12.5 stock
The ones from the CD I received from Malibal

I tried various upgrade paths and methods. Custom or quick, one then the next, only do the driver not CCC or other components. Tried manually pointing it to various drivers from the above mentioned ones. Installed Intel stuff before and after. Tried wiping out the registry and doing complete wipes of the drivers in between attempts... Forced uninstall and disable/enables in device manager.


Windows 7 is running SP1 and is fully up to date. I have all other system drivers up to date and functioning perfectly. I can play games just fine using only the HD4000(so not why I bought a 7970m). I have even tried running on battery. System restores don't help, windows repair tools don't help (both start-up and boot to install tools from command prompt, didn't expect them to but had to try).

I am quite disheartened by all this... Everything else about this system is just amazing, I would really hate to have to return it because AMD fail.

 

It does sound like your video card is shot , but you can still try a few things like re-seating the card just in case something happens to be loose.

 

It sounds like you may have a card that requires an RMA. The 7970M issues you hear others talk about (Enduro problems, GPU underutilization, heat, etc.) don't result in crashes or error messages, just in lower-than-expected performance. I also had a 7970M recently (NP9150 laptop) but sent it back for a GPU switch to the 680M. The 7970M while I had it worked fine - I never experienced a single crash or BSOD, and even with the Enduro limitations on performance, it was still worlds faster than any other mobile GPU I ever had. It may be worth starting the RMA process now to get a new 7970M for peace of mind.

 

So I went and opened it up and wiggled the heat-sinks around a bit didn't actually reseat anything just made sure they were seated well. Turned it back on only on battery power and everything was recognized. I could get into CCC and configure games etc. They perform like crap but I assumed that was because I was on battery. Plugged in power and it froze up went to black screen. Figured to try unplugging it again and sure enough the game recovers. ? Got it to actually run after plugging it back in but it was all of half a frame a second for some reason but the GPU fan sure sped up. Weird weird stuff. My thoughts are either I have a bad power supply or just a bad card, but I cant quite put my foot on it. Any thoughts as to what to try next?

 

I actually had this issue when I first got the laptop, it led to my first reformat. For me, the error 43 meant the card was not starting right and when I tried to force games to use, or anything to use it for that matter, it would end in bad frame rates and Bsods. Getting my driver installed correctly fixed this. I don't know how you are doing it, or if this is even applicable to you, but the drivers might just be going on there wrong. Did you try running the ones off the disc after a fresh windows install? Or did you go right for the new ones out of the box?

 

Hi,


Error code 43 denotes that one of the drivers controlling the device notified the operating system that the device failed in some manner. I would suggest you to Update your drivers manually and check if it helps.

Follow the methods listed here.

Method 1 – Uninstall the current driver
a) Click “Start“, go to “Run”, type “sysdm.cpl” in the text box, and press “ENTER”.
b) Open the “Hardware” tab on the System Properties dialog box, and then click on “Device Manager”
c) Double click “Device Type”, and then click on the hardware device that is reporting Error 43
d) Next, go to the “Driver” tab and click “Uninstall” to uninstall the device driver completely + tick delete all software from syste,.
e) Restart the computer.
f)install driver sweeper+any registry cleaner you know off e,g registry mechanic. run driver sweeper, make sure you tick amd and clean any amd driver files left.then run registry cleaner
g) I would suggest to download latest driver from intel like intel chipset installation utiltity and usb 3.0 driver beacuse clevo or malibal have the old one
H) download the driver from clevo don't use one from malibal. install
CLEVO - Download
J) report here about your result

 

Already done all that king. Read the OP (no offense).

I am exchanging email with Malibal right now and hopefully will come up with a fix. I will let you guys know by updating the title and OP as well as down here with what happens. Crossing my fingers I do not need to RMA.

 

Same situation for me with Malibal, card is most likely toast. I've been using the onboard in the meantime. For me I could initially get a game started for 5-15 seconds and then it'd freeze, lock up or bsod. Now I can't even get drivers installed or if I do windows hard locks upon booting. Malibal has been extremely slow with their e-mails though.

 

They were sometimes fast sometimes slow with me as well. Do you have a picture of the card itself? I would be curious to see if they simply sent out my bad card after getting mine replaced (I doubt it though but curious since that's exactly what mine did).



On another note I am sorry for not getting back to this thread earlier. School started, work got taxing etc. My replacement card has been flawless and was indeed the resolution to my problem. Very glad I went with the 7970m, especially now that the 12.8 drivers are out.

 

12.8 driver!, bro you need to get 12.11 driver beta , it will make your 7970m fly. But before that you must clean after un-installation of you current driver